MyLondon Award Ceremony 2021

This year's MyLondon Photo Project award ceremony was our first ceremony in an actual gallery space and was a huge success on Saturday evening.

Wayne Chin with his certificate. Wayne had six photos in the top 50 of the MyLondon exhibition.

The Covid-19 pandemic had caused us to wait until the last minute until we decided to go ahead with this socially-distanced event. We asked people to wear masks and had the building's windows wide open on the chilly Autumn evening in the Minet Library, Lambeth, South London.

The library staff were not only very welcoming to us: inviting us to hang the pictures in their foyer (the top 20 winners) and computer area (the photo wall of 72 photos) but they stayed late after the library closed at 5pm on Saturday.

Michelle Allsup with her photo of Thames Bridges (August in the 2022 calendar):

We didn't know how many people would come on the night - but we ended up with almost all the photographers coming. Everyone was presented with a certificate and a copy of the new MyLondon 2022 wall calendar and desktop calendar. This year we also printed 26 greeting cards and people were given a copy of their cards too, if their photos were on them.

You can see the Top 20 photos here, but below is a sample of the top awards given out on the night:

Best Pair (Documentary): Denis Chung

Best Pair (Contemporary): Patrizia Rossi:

Best Single Image: Michael E for Man on Bench.

Alex Davies Award from Best Portrait: Shenan Chandler for Chilling in Brixton. This photo is October (Black History Month) in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Chris Cheesman Award for Most Creative Photo: McGinlay for Neon Lights. This photo is December in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Third Place (People's Choice): Geraldine Crimmins for Alice's, Portobello Road. This photo is January in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Third Place (Judges' Choice): Michelle Goldberg for Punks, Camden Town. This photo is March in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Second Place (People's Choice): Shenan Chandler for Parakeet Whisperer. This photo is April in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Second Place (Judges' Choice): Goska Calik for Signets on the Thames. This photo is September in the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

First Place (People's and Judges' Choice): Downpour at the Serpentine by Shenan Chandler. This photo is the cover image on the 2022 MyLondon calendar.

Thank you to the Royal Photographic Society (The RPS) London branch for helping with this project in many ways, including Julian Rouse running the Cafe Art RPS Photography Mentoring Group with volunteers Judy Hicks, Pat Simmons, Vince Harris and John Kelly. A special thank you to David and Judy Hicks for buying beautiful books on photography on behalf of the RPS London for the winners.

Thank you to Fujifilm UK for lending our mentoring group 10 X-T30 cameras for two months over the summer. Many of the winning photos were taken on these cameras.

Thank you to the Minet Library, especially Zoey Dixon and Philip Norman. Thank you to all Cafe Art's volunteers, especially Chris Paten.

These photos were selected by a jury and an online public vote. The vote was anonymous and the jury did not know who took the photos. Mentors from the Café Art RPS Photography Mentoring Group were not members of the jury. Thank you to the people who voted and to the jury: Kate Alaway (Homeless Link), Michael Allwright (founder of MySydney and MyWorld trustee), Jay Charnock (The RPS), Neil Cordell (founder of the RPS Café Art Photography Mentoring Group), Mathew Diamond (founder of MyToronto and MyWorld trustee), David Hicks (The RPS), Ray of Light (Photographer and past MyLondon winner), Emma Mapp (London Photo Festival), Kit Shah (London Photo Festival), and Sarah Turner (CarterWong and MyWorld trustee).